Woman Chased by Crows (6 page)

It was one thing to be cool in front of policemen, she was good at that. It was better to be resolute and unafraid with them, they were like dogs, if you cowered they bit you. Alone was different. After she locked the studio door she started to shake. Why would they kill him? Because of her? Her hand was trembling, holding the cordless phone while she paced the wooden floor. “The police were here,” she said. The receiver was damp where she clutched it. “You believe me now? He found me. Sooner or later they always find me.” She watched herself passing in the wall mirrors. “The police were asking about me?”

“Yes.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Nothing.” Dr. Ruth's voice sounded tight. “Whatever you've said to me is privileged communication, doctor/patient. I confirmed what they already knew, that you saw me regularly. Beyond that I couldn't tell them anything about you.”

“They think I killed the man.”

“Did you?”

“Of course not.”

“You might have thought he was another assassin, coming for you.”

“It was a possibility.” She stood in the middle of the studio floor. From this position she could see herself from three angles. Automatically she pulled her shoulders back. “If he had come to me last night, I think . . . I would have let him do . . . whatever he had come to do.” She took first position, second position,
sur les pointes
, then flat, then on her toes again. “I was ready. I was waiting. I waited all night for him to come.”

“To kill you?”

“Maybe,” she said. She began to dance, a practice class adagio, slow, measured steps. “Because I'm tired of waiting. It takes its toll. I have trouble sleeping. I try drinking myself to sleep: that doesn't work. I tried those pills you gave me, they make me stupid and slow and I still don't sleep. I am always looking behind me, beside me.”

“I can't do anything for you, Anya, until you're ready to tell me.”

“I came to this town because I had no reason to come here,” she said. “It was a place on a map.” She moved the phone to her right hand and stepped to the barre on
demi pointes
, began to work through the basic exercises, the foundation. “Anyone who followed me here would have done hard work to find me.”

“I have to go, Anya, I can see you tomorrow. I have an hour in the morning. I think you should come in.”

“And someone did. Someone found me. So I say, okay, that is enough now, I give up.”

“Come and see me tomorrow morning, ten o'clock. Okay?”

“I was very good, you know,” Anya said. She watched herself in the long mirrors as she lifted her leg. “I might have been a ballerina.”

“You were.”

“In the old sense of the word. Over here it just means a dancer, but in the Mariinsky, it is different, it is a title. It means something.”

“Anya? Will you come?”

“It means something,” she said.

She wouldn't come in, the doctor knew it, she could hear it in the woman's voice. She'd been spooked. The shooting of the detective would be all the proof she needed that assassins were in town, watching her, waiting for her in the shadows. It was unfortunate. So close to a breakthrough, so very close.

The road to Omemee was clear, traffic was light. Stacy drove, Adele leaned against the window staring out at acreage blotched with patches of old snow, muddy cattle pens, livestock gathered around broken bales of hay. “You like it up here?” she asked. “All this . . . scenery.”

“It's okay,” Stacy said. “I'd rather be down in the city, doing what you do. But I'd probably have to start all over.”

“Maybe not. The Chief thinks a lot of you. He'd back you.”

“He doesn't want me to leave.”

“Would he stand in your way?”

“No. Hell. He thinks I'm wasted up here.”

“What do you think?”

Stacy smiled. “I think that today I'm working a homicide.” She looked at Adele. “Sorry. Must be really hard for you.”

Adele waved off the suggestion. “So. How are things going with you and Davy Crockett?”

“Who?”

“Dan'l Boone. That Greenway guy.”

“Joe?” Stacy laughed, a low chuckle deep in her throat. “Fine. Good. It works out we get to see each other maybe once every couple of weeks.”

“That'll keep the romance fresh.” Adele was quiet for a while. Stacy concentrated on the road. When Adele spoke again her voice was harsh, bitter. “You feel that chill in the air?” she said. “When a cop goes down. Even if it wasn't in the line of duty.”

“We don't know it wasn't,” Stacy said.

“Oh who knows what the Christ he was up to. Sonofabitch baffled the hell out of me. Always had something going on the side. Hard to work with a partner like that.”

“Haven't had a partner yet I really got along with.”

“Like a marriage,” said Adele. “At least that's what the married people tell me.” She snorted dismissively. “Takes some fine tuning while you work out how to deal with the fact . . .” her voice rose “. . . the fact that your partner is a lying, sneaking, selfish sack of shit who wouldn't know the truth if it bit him on the ass!”

Stacy kept her mouth shut for a full klick. “What do you figure?” she asked after a while. “Jealous husband?”

“Serve the bastard right,” Adele muttered.

The potted palms and thatched canopy over the bar were an attempt to give Lemongrass a Thai motif and obscure vestiges of the pizza joint it once was. The lunch crowd had long since departed, two waitresses were setting tables and organizing flatware and linen. The bartender was watching the bar television where young men were twirling skateboards in the air. He looked up as the two women crossed his line of sight. Stacy held up her shield.

“I don't suppose you're here for the tom yum soup,” said the bartender.

“No sir,” Stacy said. “We're from Dockerty. You heard someone got shot over there last night?”

“Really? I just got up an hour ago. I work late.”

“We're checking around to see if anybody remembers seeing the man yesterday.”

“You got a picture?”

“You'd remember him,” Adele said. “Six foot eight, hair like Ronald McDonald.”

“The basketball player? Oh sure. He had a beer at the bar. We talked roundball . . . fuck! 'Scuse me. Was it him? Did
he
get shot?”

“Yes sir,” said Stacy.

“Shot dead?”

“He's dead.”

“Holy shit!” said the bartender. “Oh fuck. Sorry. Damn. He was a cool guy. We talked. March Madness, you know, the
NCAA
tournament. Said he played college ball in the States. Syracuse. The Orangemen. I thought that was cool 'cause of the hair and . . . Aw man, that sucks.”

“We're trying to find out if there was anyone here with him,” Adele said.

“What? Yeah. Somebody. Somebody came in and he moved to a table. I didn't see who. It got busy.”

“Would you know which waitress served them?”

“Couldn't tell you, but it was either Kelly or Lara and they're both here.”

Kelly remembered them because they hadn't stayed. A woman had looked in and whispered to the tall man and they left right away. She didn't know where they went.

Stacy said, “Can you describe the woman?”

“Not really. She just stuck her head in for a second.”

“Was she tall, short?”

“Ah . . . medium I guess.”

Stacy asked, “How old would you say?”

“Maybe thirty five . . .
ish
, I guess.”

“Blonde?”

“No. Not blonde. Dark hair, I think. Dark brown.”

“Long hair?”

“Don't think so. Pulled back maybe? Could have been pulled back. Lara? Remember that woman who stuck her nose in for a minute and didn't stay? She left with the tall redheaded guy?”

“
I
wanted to leave with the tall redheaded guy,” Lara said.

“That lets out the Russian woman,” Stacy said as they headed back to the car. “She's short, her hair is blonde, almost white.”

“Maybe they went somewhere else,” said Adele. “Maybe she saw somebody she knew and didn't want them to see her. Can you think where else they might have gone, if they still wanted a drink?”

“Liquor store. He had a bottle of
JD
in the room.”

“Sometimes he kept one in his suitcase.”

“Well, there's the liquor store, and we're here.”

After that it all happened quickly. The liquor store had surveillance cameras.

“There he is,” Adele said. They were in the manager's office looking at the tape from the previous evening. “He alone?”

The manager pointed at the screen. “That woman checking out the wine? She's just stalling. She's not buying anything.”

“And she follows him out,” Stacy said.

“Wind it back.”

“Thirties, shoulder-length brown hair, collar turned up, looking around.”

“There, stop.” Adele said. “She looks over at him. Clear look at her face.”